


Shadows: An Epistolary Poem From Steve Rogers to Bucky Barnes

by cooking_with_hailstones



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Kinda, M/M, WOOO, first publication, it's a poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 16:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2116533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cooking_with_hailstones/pseuds/cooking_with_hailstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The unwritten, unspoken words that Steve Rogers will never say aloud.<br/>Many fics have inspired this work, but particular credit goes to A Long Winter and Bucky's heart-wrenching letters to Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows: An Epistolary Poem From Steve Rogers to Bucky Barnes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Long Winter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1799623) by [dropdeaddream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dropdeaddream/pseuds/dropdeaddream), [WhatAreFears](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatAreFears/pseuds/WhatAreFears). 



We were always hidden, weren’t we…

Each hidden in our own heads, we slipped straying hands inside of each other’s pockets,

Picking out something we were lacking in ourselves,

Each finding something extraordinary in the other.

We picked pockets and stole hearts instead,

Catching secrets from each other’s whispers,

Seeking fleeting moments in shadowed corners.

But we fell too _fast,_ too _hard_ , headlong into inescapable darkness.

 

\------------------------------------ 

 

Darkness consumes us all so quickly.

The light of fireworks used to shine in your eyes, but the explosions of shells

Looks remarkably similar, and their glare replaced that glow in short order.

The shadows that were once our hiding places _slip inside us_

Shadows within these stolen hearts have smothered us in their starved embrace,

_Your arms are too far away_ to be of any comfort.  


 

 ------------------------------------ 

 

The flash of grenades obliterates the lies that were strewn before us,

Meant to pave the way for these violent paths.

 

Glory is the lie we both exploded in our own way;

It is an elaborate myth, constructed to break hearts and minds,

It is a façade cloaked in blinding lights,

Stripping away the shadows in which we used to hide.

Glory is a lie that will take us down with it,

Both of us hollowed out shells too shocked to continue any sort of forward momentum.

 

_And yet we remained, silent, surrendered._   


_Each in our own way we stay muted and still._

Together comprising nothing but a zero-sum.

And now the only place for us to go is down, down.

Disappearing from each other piece by shrunken piece.

 

\------------------------------------ 

 

_Slipping suddenly away in cataclysmic cacophony,_

_Silver tears mingled with the wind,_

As falling snow blurred the world that was **_falling away with you…_**

 

 ------------------------------------ 

 

I lie here now; trying to replace what the world never knew existed,

The tides, the push and pull of these days

It erupts into white noise around me and I am _drowning_ …

 

 ------------------------------------  

 

We were something and we were nothing,

dodging fire from every side. Yet losing you,

It burned a hole through me the way a bullet never could.

 

The bullet you tore through me,

Somehow it sparked a fire I thought

Had died _seventy years ago…_

 

\------------------------------------ 

 

Love, come home.

Two broken halves out of time and place can yet make some sort of cohesive whole.

The shadows that once covered us

Could perhaps cover us once again,

And this pick-pocketed heart still beats for you and _you alone._

 

 


End file.
